Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Buddy Catlett was born George James Catlett on June 13, 1933 and grew up in Seattle, Washington. During his childhood he listened to records his mother brought home, and learned to play the cornet around age 10 after hearing Louis Armstrong, and by fourteen had saved enough money from his movie theater job to buy a saxophone. He would soon be gigging with his childhood friend Quincy Jones till 5:30 in the morning and then the two would go to Garfield High School a few hours later. It was during this time that he also met and performed with Ray Charles.
He first professional gig was with vibraphonist Bumps Blackwell’s band that included Ernestine Anderson, but by 17 had to stop performing due to tubercular pleurisy that hospitalized him for two years. Not to be beaten, he started taking bass lessons with Tiny Martin of the Seattle Symphony. Learning quickly he was soon asked to join pianist Horace Henderson’s band and on the road he went. This was followed up with a stint with Cal Tjader, a move to New York in 1958, and a European tour with Quincy Jones playing for the musical Free and Easy starring tapper Harold Nicholas.
Throughout his career he performed with Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, Count Basie and Louis Armstrong among others. He has appeared on over 100 recordings and is recognizable on the Sinatra/Basie arrangement of Fly Me To The Moon and Armstrong’s What A Wonderful World. With declining health, bassist Buddy Catlett scaled down his jazz performances in his hometown of Seattle but has not lost his popularity or respect from an admiring community. Bassist Buddy Catlett passed away on November 12, 2014, at age 81 at the Leon Sullivan Health Care Center in Seattle’s Central District.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Turk Mauro was born Mauro Turso on June 11, 1944 in New York City into a family of first-generation Italian-Americans and he first experienced jazz when his father who played in local swing bands and began playing alto saxophone at 14. He soon met his mentor, trumpeter Henry Allen, who started getting him gigs around the city until he graduated from high school in 1962.
Mauro worked in a mailroom while playing jazz, got married, had two children, hit the road and his marriage fell apart by the mid-70s. While touring he met Billy Mitchell, a member of Dizzy Gillespie’s band, that led to a few hits with Gillespie but a permanent spot in Buddy Rich’s band. His reputation as a perfectionist made him a popular sideman in the New York area, and in 1977 he release his debut album, The Underdog.
He would go on to play the Blue Note, release his sophomore project The Heavyweight, which unfortunately flopped. This began a dry period for Turk through the ’80s and he abandoned jazz for taxi and limo driving. However, in 1987 after running into Sonny Rollins who suggested Europe, Mauro packed up and moved to France. He found work as a sideman and renewed success in Paris. But success was fleeting and with work drying up in Paris and another failed marriage, his second dry spell ensued by the Nineties.
By 1994 Mauro was back in the States with his new wife taking care of his father in Florida. He managed to play at the few jazz clubs in South Florida at the time but also began to gamble in attempt to regain the good times of Paris. Health problems came by the end of the decade and a burst colon hospitalized the saxophonist. An physical altercation in which he punched local singer Beverly Barkley in the early 2000s sidelined the musician after being arrested for battery. This incident put a halt to his career and with a year probation and 50 hours of community service, since the turn of the century the hard bop saxophonist Turk Mauro has only been able to get the occasional gig around the Florida area.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Herbie Fields was born May 24, 1919 in Asbury Park, New Jersey and attended Juilliard School of Music. He served two years in the Army during WWII until 1943. He began recording in 1944 with two sides for Bob Thiele’s Signature label and over the next year and a half he recorded for Savoy, and shared a date with “Rubberlegs” Williams that featured teenaged Miles Davis’ recording debut.
Fields replaced Earl Bostic as alto saxophonist in Lionel Hampton’s band and was fluent in a variety of reed instruments, from clarinet to baritone saxophone. In 1945, he won Esquire Magazine’s New Star Award on the Alto Sax. In 1946, RCA Victor signed Fields as leader of his own big band.
Herbie would lead the big band with sidemen Neal Hefti, Bill Evans, Eddie Bert, Manny Albam, Marty Napoleon and Serge Chaloff among others and Dardanella was their biggest hit. He formed a septet in 1949 based in Chicago that backed numerous stage shows and in 1950 accompanied Billie Holiday 3-month East Coast tour.
Fields gravitated toward an R& B conception in the Fifties without success and recorded sporadically. He moved to Miami, Florida, opened a restaurant an on September 17, 1958 alto saxophonist Herbie Fields died of an overdose of sleeping pills at his home.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Ken Peplowski was born May 23, 1959 in Cleveland, Ohio. He began playing clarinet and saxophone in Polish polka bands as a child and played his first professional gig while still in elementary school. With his trumpeter brother they played local radio and television shows, dances and weddings all through high school. By his teens Ken was experimenting with jazz, playing in the school bands, jamming with the local jazz musicians and teaching at the local music store.
After a year of college, he joined the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra under the direction of Buddy Morrow. It was during this time that he met Sonny Stitt who became a great inspiration. In 1980 Peplowski moved to New York City and played from Dixieland to avant-garde jazz. He would work for Benny Goodman, recorded some 20 albums for Concord Records, toured around the world, recorded film soundtracks and most recently signed with Nagel-Heyer Records.
His collaborations include Mel Tormé, Leon Redbone, Charlie Byrd, Peggy Lee, Madonna, George Shearing, Hank Jones, Rosemary Clooney, Tom Harrell, James Moody, Cedar Walton, Houston Person, Steve Allen and Woody Allen among others. Jazz clarinetist and saxophonist Ken Peplowski continues to perform, tour, record, conduct student workshops, has been named the jazz advisor for the Oregon Festival of American Music and music director at the Jazz Party at the Shedd.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Davis was born on May 20, 1933 in Mississippi but was raised in Chicago, Illinois. Graduating from DuSable High School he continued his musical study of the saxophone at the Chicago School of Music and privately under John Hauser. In the 1950s he played in the bands of Billie Holiday, Ben Webster, Dinah Washington and extensively with Sun Ra and Archie Shepp. He teamed up with Kenny Dorham, performing and recording for many years together.
An accomplished tenor and alto saxophonist, Charles was widely known for his baritone, winning Downbeat Magazine’s 1964 International Jazz Critics Poll for the baritone saxophone. Throughout his career he would perform in the musical production of “The Philosophy of The Spiritual – A Masque of the Black”, teach public school in Brooklyn, the Jazzmobile Workshop and at the New School, be the musical director of The Turntable, a nightclub owned by Lloyd Price, and tour Europe several times.
Davis would be a member of the cooperative group “Artistry in Music” with Hank Mobley, Cedar Walton, Sam Jones and Billy Higgins, and was the co-leader and composer/arranger for the Baritone Saxophone Retinue. His numerous collaborations, performances and recordings both as a leader and sideman with a who’s who of his contemporaries such as Elvin Jones, Jimmy Garrison, Illinois Jacquet, Freddie Hubbard, Johnny Griffin, Steve Lacy, Ahmad Jamal, Blue Mitchell, Erskine Hawkins, John Coltrane and Clifford Jordan among many others. Alto, tenor and baritone saxophonist Charles Davis continued to enjoy a prolific career until his passing on July 15, 2016.
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